Imposition of the death penalty on children and pregnant women. Submission to the UN Secretary General's report on the question of the death penalty (March 2023)

We argue that the prohibition of the execution of pregnant women and children meets the criteria to be identified as a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens), namely, that: ‘(a) it is a norm of general international law; and (b) it is accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character’. The increasing acceptance and recognition by a very large majority of States that pregnant women and children should not be executed is evidenced by a review of reports from 2004 submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council, General Assembly, and the Economic and Social Council, by which this submission is informed.